This may be a food combination that’s loaded with carbs, but a big old bowl of rice, veggies, and protein has long been one of our go-to meals. It’s easy to make, delicious, and incredibly satisfying. If you’re in the mood for a meat-free stir-fry, but you don’t feel up to cooking, the Gardein Asian Style Chik’n Fried Rice Skillet Meal is a solid solution.
Gardein’s skillet meals traditionally come with a sauce pack that needs to be thawed out separately, and this dish is no exception. We’ve had issues thawing out large sauce packets in the past, but this small packet of soy sauce is easy to deal with. We just tossed it in some warm water and waited until it was ready to add to the skillet!
We did, however, run into a few problems during the cooking process. The chunks of faux chicken clumped together and stuck to the frozen rice, which meant that our protein was still frozen solid when the rest of the meal was cooked through. It took some effort to separate these chunks so that everything could cook all the way through.
The small chunks of faux chicken definitely don’t taste like real meat. One of our meat-eating staffers compared it to tofu, but it doesn’t quite capture the spongy texture of tofu either. It’s just a garden-variety faux meat product, really, and the rest of the dish isn’t enough to hide that fact.
Still, the soy sauce blend is delicious, as is the rice and veggie combo. We especially appreciate the inclusion of edamame in this dish. Not only does it provide additional protein; it offers an appealing crunch that brings everything together. The base of the stir-fry is fantastic, but we wish we could have replaced the lackluster chik’n with some tofu or tempeh. We also wish there was a little more to this meal. It definitely has more than a single serving of food, but we doubt this could feed two hungry people.
Since Gardein Asian Style Chik’n Fried Rice Skillet Meal takes at least ten minutes to cook, you might find that it’s not substantially more effort to simply make your own stir-fry from scratch. However, if you like the convenience of having everything in one bag, and you don’t mind the mediocre chicken substitute, this isn’t a bad dinner option. After all, a good stir-fry is the perfect meal to enjoy at the end of a long day.
To learn more about the cooking instructions, ingredients, or cooking instructions for this Gardein vegetarian fried rice dish, check out our package scans below.
